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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29213130">The Secrets of Friends &amp; Strangers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexFromAwen/pseuds/AlexFromAwen'>AlexFromAwen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Lesbian Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Catra is a master thief, Emotional Hurt, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/F, Most characters start off "normal", Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, She-Ra is a superhero, Slow Burn, Swearing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:34:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,278</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29213130</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexFromAwen/pseuds/AlexFromAwen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She-Ra is a superhero in the modern setting of Etheria City on the trail of a master thief known as the Wildcat, having no idea that she's on a collision course with her former childhood best friend, Catra. Meanwhile, Catra is trying to catch the perfect score to escape Hordak, the crime boss gradually taking over the city. Hi-jinx ensue.</p><p>Rated Teen to start, but that is subject to change</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Adora &amp; Glimmer (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow &amp; Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Mara/Female OC</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Secrets of Friends &amp; Strangers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is something of a stream of consciousness fic that came to me about 24hrs ago (at the time I'm posting this), so I'm not 100% sure where I'll be going with this, or how often it'll be updated, but I wanted to get Chapter 1 out promptly.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em> “This just in: A tenement building at the corner of Norwyn and Twelfth Avenue in midtown Etheria City was the scene of a fire this evening. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the blaze, but it is believed that the cause was a grease fire in a fourth floor unit’s kitchen. While the apartment suffered extensive damage, this near tragedy was thankfully prevented by the swift intervention of She-Ra, the city’s newest superhero who arrived in time to prevent the fire from spreading to neighbouring units. Authorities have so far refused to comment on whether they will be seeking damages from the hero for her initial arrival which sources at the scene claim amounted to the hero smashing through a brick wall near the kitchen instead of entering through the balcony door because, quote, ‘it was faster’.  </em>
</p><p>
  <em> “She-Ra has continued to be a boon to the city but remains something of a mystery since her arrival in Etheria City a month ago, her origin unknown, though that mystery may be close to being solved. A source in city hall has claimed that there is credible evidence that She-Ra arrived from a previously unknown island entirely populated by eight foot tall amazons, and the search for this island is underway. We will of course update this story as new information comes to light. For Etheria City news, I’m Tallstar. Goodnight.” </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Adora stared up at the TV, dumbfounded as the evening news credits rolled at a quick pace so the station could get to it’s late-night talk show. After letting what she just heard sink in, she turned to her right and shooting her roommate Glimmer a look, arching an eyebrow and asking, “Um, did you tell the press that I’m from an island of eight foot amazons?” It was a valid question. Glimmer worked at City Hall (at the request of her mother, the Mayor), and was one of the few people who actually knew that She-Ra was actually Adora.</p><p>For her part, Glimmer looked equally as confused, shaking her head as she replied, “Wasn’t me. Near as I can tell, these theories just seem to be spontaneously generating themselves at this point.”</p><p>The pair sat in the living room of their modest (though thankfully rent controlled) apartment, take-out containers strewn over their coffee table. They’d deposited themselves there shortly after getting home, intent on losing themselves in some must-see TV after a long day, but Adora couldn’t help but flip over to see if she’d made the news again. She couldn’t seem to help herself...after such a long time of being a nobody, it felt good to have people praising her with regularity. Or praising She-Ra, anyway. The theories about the superhero’s origin were starting to get pretty ridiculous, however. In the last week, she’d heard the amazonian island theory, that she was an alien who’d crash landed, had been exposed to radiation, was a genetically-engineered supersoldier, and even some kind of mass hallucination...that one confused her most of all.</p><p>~~~</p><p>The real facts, not that she was raring to share them with the press, were that she’d never been that special. Until not too long ago, she’d just been your average girl who’d grown up in Plum Row, or as most of the city called it, the Fright Zone: the low income district in the north end of the city. If she’d ever had parents, they’d abandoned her before she could remember and she’d grown up in the system, bouncing between foster families and the Plum Row Youth Home. It had been hard, she’d been forced to mature earlier than she should have, and it probably would have broken her if not for her one friend growing up...Catra. They’d met when they were five, and been joined at the hip (or as close as they could manage when they weren’t leant out to fosters) until the incident with Ms. Weaver when they were fifteen. After that, Catra had been thrown in juvie and Adora and impulsively ran away. </p><p>She had lost touch with Catra after that...she still felt bad about that, had tried to track her down, even had dreams about being there, outside the gates when she was released from the system, but the fact was she hadn’t been able to and after five years, she wasn’t even sure how she’d find her former best friend. </p><p>Would Catra even want to see her if she could figure out where she was?</p><p>Thinking about it, after she ran away she probably would have ended up going down a dark path and gotten into trouble, maybe even getting caught up in Hordak’s gang if she hadn’t been for Mara. She was trying to shoplift food and was caught by Mara, but instead of being turned in to the cops, Mara had offered Adora a room in the house she shared with her eccentric mother, Razz. Oh sure, Adora was suspicious at first...they wouldn’t have been the first foster’s who initially seemed nice only to later turn out to be horrible when it became obvious she had issues except the weirdest thing happened: the turn never came. No beatings, no food denials, no cruel names. Mara and Razz just...kept treating her with patience and love. Didn’t they know she wasn’t worth it?</p><p>It had taken her a long time to get past that sort of mindset, but Mara and Razz had never given up on her. Not when she had her bad days and lashed out against them and herself. Not when she’d come out to them at sixteen in the midst of a panic attack about their response (that response having amounted to Mara quipping to Razz ‘you owe me five bucks, mom’.) It was their caring that convinced her to get help, to get through high school, and even go on to college for social work. They became her mother and grandmother, respectively, the first time she’d called any adults parents.</p><p>It was in her first year of college she’d met and quickly befriended Glimmer and her childhood friend Bow, soon calling themselves the Best Friend Squad. Was it a childish name for a bunch of eighteen-year-olds? Maybe, but they didn’t care, and Adora was happy to have best friends again...though it did make her think about Catra again, wondering what had happened to her after she got out of juvie.</p><p>At twenty, she had almost finished her bachelor’s in social work. She volunteered at a youth centre to help kids like Mara had helped her. And was paying the bills as a bartender at her mother’s club, <em> The Friends of Mara </em>, as well as sharing a flat with Glimmer. Life was decent. Good even. She wasn’t special, but that was ok. She never needed to be as long as she was happy.</p><p>But then she’d found it: the gem.</p><p>She’d been walking home late one night after a shift at the club when she felt compelled to take a shortcut down an alley. This was <em> not </em>something she did. She grew up in the Fright Zone, for goodness sake, she knew not to walk down random alleyways, and yet there she was, doing just that, as if pulled by some magnetic force. She couldn’t seem to deny it’s pull. Moving into the gloom, Adora was fairly sure she was about to die...or maybe just ‘disappear’ (which she was pretty sure was just official-speak for die). There had been a rash of mysterious disappearances in the city in recent months, and Adora was sure she was about to be next. </p><p>So imagine her surprise when she rounded a corner to find a glowing blue gem the size of her fist, floating in the air. She was certain that the gem, whatever it was, was the thing that had called her here, somehow. She should have turned the other way, ran like hell. That would have been the sensible response, what any sane person would have done, except for that damned compulsion. And then, when she was within five feet of the jewel, the weirdness was cranked up to eleven...the gem said her name.</p><p>
  <em> ‘Adora…’ </em>
</p><p>She heard it, clear as day, but was it out loud, or in her head? </p><p>
  <em> ‘Adora...say the words…’ </em>
</p><p>This was obviously absurd. Gems shouldn’t speak (and probably shouldn’t glow or float, either, but one ridiculous thing at a time). She was losing her mind. Had to be. And yet...she was still approaching the gem, it’s electric blue glow seeming to pulse with her every step closer.</p><p>
  <em> ‘The words, Adora...say the words…’ </em>
</p><p>How do you explain to the mysterious, disembodied voice of a floating, glowy gem that you have no goddamn idea what words it expects you to say? Short answer, you don’t. Even before she could voice her confusion, she realized she knew exactly what she was meant to say, and as she reached out to touch the gem called out, “For the honour...of Greyskull!”</p><p>And then everything went white.</p><p>The next thing she knew, she was standing on top of a rooftop and she felt..tall. Tall, and powerful, like she was capable of another, like the sky was the limit. All common sense seemingly having left her, she found herself looking at the next rooftop and wondering if she could jump to it. And so she did. She didn’t <em> try </em>to jump it, she just...jumped it, clearing the twenty foot gap between rooftops like it was nothing. And so she jumped another, and another. By her fifth leap, as she soared through the air and crossed a fifty foot gap with ease, her pure, untamed joy got the better of her and she hollered out at the top of her lungs “Woohoooo!!”</p><p>She landed on her next roof in a heap, her excitement distracting her from where she should have been positioning her feet. But regardless, she landed unharmed. A landing that would have killed most people, and she just brushed herself off like nothing. She couldn’t help but laugh...she was pretty sure the talking gem had made her invincible, somehow.</p><p>The pause in her forward momentum finally forced her to pay attention to her own body...or what she hoped was her own body. It certainly didn’t look that familiar. She seemed to be wearing a white and gold skin tight bodysuit, save her arms which were mostly bare. But even they seemed different...there was no other way of putting her, she looked jacked. Golden, armoured bracers were affixed onto her forearms, and smack dab in the centre of one of them was the gem. She probably should have had more questions, honestly, but she was on such an emotional high she couldn’t think of anything but keeping it going. She was just about to leap to her next roof when she realized she had a problem...she’d run out of roofs. She found herself standing at the edge, looking down at Plumeria Park, the seven hundred acre green-space in the centre of the city. Faintly, she could make out the buildings on the far side of the park, the lights glowing in the night, and a thought occurred to her...maybe she could jump right across the park.</p><p>Backing up to give herself some running space, she took three deep breaths, and then she was off running at full speed. Just as she reached the edge of the roof, she pushed with all the strength she had in these new legs of hers and then she was rising into the air, higher and higher. At a certain point, after she’d traveled about two hundred feet, her leap had stopped feeling like a jump, and more like she was suspended in the air, like she could fly.</p><p>Adora could fly!</p><p>She let out a whoop of joy and was just trying to figure out what the best body position for optimal aerodynamics while in-flight when she passed the central arch of her jump, and started descending towards the park. And the ground was coming up to meet her really goddamned fast.</p><p>“Oh fuuuuuuuuccccckkkk!” Adora screamed before impacting with the ground, creating her own crater in the process.</p><p>She felt like her entire body was on fire when she managed to dig herself out of the dirt, like she was one giant bruise. ‘<em> Ok </em> ,’ she thought with an audible groan, ‘ <em> So no flight, and not actually invincible, just really tough. Got it. </em>’</p><p>Her less-than-graceful landing drew the attention of a couple who seemed like they likely had been out enjoying their Friday night and were taking the scenic route home through the park. Made sense, the park was beautiful at night with it’s fairy lights strung between the lamp posts, but Adora was forced to admit they were damn lucky she hadn’t managed to land on them, given the displacement of earth she’d left in her wake. The women approached her cautiously, as if unsure what to make of her (and honestly, Adora couldn’t blame them), but still they approached, the taller of the two, a woman big, dark brown eyes and pale blue, almost silver curly hair, stepped ahead of her partner, tentatively asking, “Um...are you...are you alright?”</p><p>‘<em> I am hurting like a motherfucker, </em>’ was her first thought. “Oh yeah, I’m good,” was what she said, brushing dirt off her new white duds. “Still working on that landing, hehe,” she added with what she hoped was a winning smile.</p><p>The shorter woman, who sported long hair dyed light purple and blue eyes, stepped up to take her partner’s hand. The two of them looked Adora over from head to toe before the shorter woman asked, “Who are you?”</p><p>Adora had half a heartbeat where she nearly said her real name, but then she paused, catching sight of herself in the window of a nearby pavilion. She barely recognized herself...her normally dirty blonde hair was a platinum shade and looked like it was flowing nearly down to her waist...probably free of tangles too, dammit. Her eyes, regularly a plain blue-grey now seemed so incredibly blue. Actually, they may have actually been glowing. She had a winged tiara and armoured shoulder pieces, and she looked strong, and intimidating. Hell, even her posture seemed to be improved. And in that instant, she heard the voice again.</p><p>
  <em> ‘You know what to tell them…’ </em>
</p><p>“She-Ra,” she finally answered, looking back at the women again with a smile. “My name’s She-Ra, and I’m here to help.”</p><p>~~~</p><p>“Adora...hey, earth to Adora!” Glimmer said, pulling Adora out of her reminiscing.</p><p>Giving her head a shake, she turned her attention to her friend, “Sorry, I was miles away, what were you saying?”</p><p>Holding up a bowl nearly overflowing with popcorn, Glimmer grinned brightly, “I said I made the popcorn, so you have to make the drinks. You’re so much better at it than I am, anyway.”</p><p>Blowing a stray hair out of her face, Adora just smiled and nodded, pushing herself off the couch as she quipped, “No worries, I’m here to help.” Moving into their kitchen, Adora started pulling out the makings for a couple cocktails. As she mixed fruit juice and alcohol, she pondered, “Maybe I should rethink doing a proper interview with the press, instead of just quick soundbites...set the record straight or something? I mean, Bow’s been at the city desk of the Herald for more than six months now...I’m sure he’d love the scoop, and we could have a bit more control of the story that’s getting out there.”</p><p>Glimmer moved back into the kitchen to lean against the counter while she thought about this. “Yeah, maybe. I’m sure Bow would be willing to play press secretary, but what exactly would you say? The truth?”</p><p>“Hmm...yeah, probably not. Guess I’ll have to think about this a little more, figure out what I’m going to do,” Adora muttered, shaking her mixture and straining it into two glasses Glimmer had chilling already. “Ok, so what are we watching?”</p><p>~~~</p><p>At that same moment, across the city, a lithe figure dressed all in black descended on a line into the grand hall of the Etheria City Antiquities Museum, using a device on her hip to control the rate of her descent, stopping a couple feet above a large glass case. Pulling down a a pair of attached goggles, the figure smirked as the previously invisible web of lasers surrounding the case jumped into clarity, showing exactly where the gaps were. Removing a glove, the figure cracked her knuckles before stretching out her fingers, a set of razor sharp claws emerging from her fingertips. Reaching between the lasers, the figure gave a quick twist of her wrist and sliced through the glass like it was butter. Letting the sliced piece of glass drop into the case, the figure reached inside, quickly grabbing for the golden artifact housed within, the prized piece of the famed Kanok Cultural exhibit that had just premiered.</p><p>And then, the figure’s radio squawked in her ear, far too loudly. <em> “Hey Wildcat...how you makin’ out?” </em> </p><p>Cursing, the figure snatched the artifact and quickly hit the device on her waist again to start ascending back up to the skylight above. The figure was just finishing closing the skylight when the night guard walked through the hall. She took a moment more to watch with satisfaction the guard’s realization that the piece was gone before darting across the rooftop. </p><p>As she reached the edge of the roof, the voice on her radio squawked again, <em> “Wiiillldcat...hey, Wildcat...let me know you’re ok.” </em> Sighing in frustration, the figure switched off her radio and hooked up to the zipline she’d set up earlier and dashed across to the building across the street and hurried down to the fire escape to a van waiting in the alley. </p><p>Pulling the door open, Catra finally crawled in and pulled off the mask she’d been wearing to hide her features, turning to the driver to mutter, “Scorpia, exactly what part of ‘radio silence’ was unclear?”</p><p>The well built woman behind the wheel cringed with embarrassment even as she pulled the vehicle out of the alley and started driving away, saying, “Aw geez, I’m sorry Catra, you were just taking a while and I got worried.”</p><p>Catra shrugged a shoulder, “They added a secondary alarm system to the skylight that wasn’t there when I initially cased the museum for the job. Probably as added security for the exhibit, made getting in a bit trickier.” Opening up a bag on her hip, she pulled out the artifact with a smirk, adding, “Fat lot of good it did them, of course.”</p><p>Scorpia laughed, looking at Catra with undisguised admiration, “Wow...you’re an artist, you know that?” </p><p>Catra grinned with pride at this. “Ok, let’s go drop this off with the man, then you need to take me home. I’ve got an early start at the day job tomorrow and should get a good night’s sleep.”</p><p>The pair were silent for a few minutes before Scorpia looked at her again, eyebrow arched questioningly, “I still don’t get why you bother with a day job. You’re doing fine as is with your scores.”</p><p>“They’re finally giving me my requested transfer to the city desk tomorrow, working with another junior reporter. Where better to get the inside scoop on the biggest scores in Etheria than the Herald...the more jobs I can track down, the faster I can pay off my debts and get out from under Hordak’s shadow.”</p><p>“The faster I can be free.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>So, this is only my second piece I'm posting on AO3 after last year's Deja Vu. I intended to do more fan fiction, but the second story I started writing turned into a a full blown OC novel that's consumed me for the last eight months. And while that's still being worked on, it's into the 2nd draft nitty gritty editing, and it feels nice to have an outlet that I can be a little less precise and more messy with, just my thoughts flowing onto the page.</p><p>Deja Vu was me trying to stay completely true to the canon of the show, whereas with this new story, I'm going to take a few more chances with the characterization (and even more so with the setting), but I hope you all like it.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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